The Victors
by kjanuary
Summary: Kadessa crumbles and Gloriano burns. Charle Frahma, unscathed by war, finds the last Dragoon in the ruins, and remakes her for a new and emptier world.
1. Chapter 1

_[A/N: Because Charle is creepy. Part 1 of 2, and many thanks to Raindog Bride for her input. ]_

* * *

THE VICTORS

The war for Endiness had come to an end.

Delicately, Charle Frahma inspected the iridescent fragments of the Crystal Sphere one last time, then let them fall. Once the wellspring of power that could make the earth itself quake and the sky rend apart, it was now only a broken bauble. She left the pieces beside the mortal remains of what had once been her brother. Time would bury both.

When she arrived in the still-smoking, still-crumbling ruins of Kadessa, she had looked for the Crystal Sphere first. She did not need to see Melbu Frahma's body to know his soul had fled. The fate of the sealed Hundred-and-Eighth was more urgent. Cleaning her hands on the silken cloth that her attendant Miata brought for that purpose, Charle studied the sky.

Through the towering columns of ash, a surreal vision claimed ownership over the sky. Clouds coalesced into something higher and more material than clouds, roiling together like an infant in seemed to draw all things to itself, from the plumes of smoke, to the light of setting sun and kindling stars, to the souls of the wartime deadhalf-glimpsed in the corners of her eyes—and she knew better than to call that impression a mere flight of imagination. At its heart, the golden thumbnail of moon she had always known was almost obscured. Soon it would pass from sight completely, becoming the core of a phenomenon that no one, living or dead, had ever thought to see.

It was beautiful, in its own way, still incorporeal but growing like a nightmare. She expected that it would soon cease to terrify. Human memories lasted only so long, after all.

At her side, Miata trembled. "Will it fall upon our heads?" she asked her mistress, quite calmly, but she could not hide the anguished pounding of her heart from the attuned senses of her own race.

"Perhaps someday," Charle answered, "though I do not intend for that day to come. In any case, that moon will never set again."

Lifting the hem of her skirt away from the rubble (and not all of it was rubble, either. Winglieslay dead among these stones, both soldier and civilian, for Kadessa had been a grand city; and below that, like the tiers of a cake, humans had perished in their little hamlets and villages when Kadessa crumbled like an avalanche from the clouds. Melbu Frahma had planned it so, moving his airborne capital over settled lands when he knew the Dragoons would come for him,Gloriano smoldering at their heels. Charle had intended to remind the dear little creatures of that fact before they went on their rampage, but then the Dragoons destroyed Aglis, her favorite city, and she felt less obliging), she picked her way over to a familiar-looking bit of stonework.

Yes: it was that same fountain from the courtyard where she and Melbu had played as children. The first of her roses at Ulara had come from the blooms in that garden. Astoundingly, a few inches of water remained in the cracked bowl. One sad-eyed fish lay gasping, the gritty water barely deep enough to cover its torn fins.

Intrigued, Charle bent down. The fish stared piteously back. "Melly?" she asked, waiting for some spark, some sign.

Miata cleared her throat for attention. "Mistress."

A young scout approached them, dropping lightly out of the cinder-filled air on wings of russet light. Charle straightened to greet him, brushing ash from her pastel petticoats. She went through servants and guards too quickly lately, and did not recognize him. He did bow properly enough, but he remained hovering, clearly reluctant to let his sandals contact the defiled, upturned ground. His eyes darted towards Melbu Frahma's body, but wisely he did not comment. Nor did he stammer anything about the evolving moon, as the last scout had.

"Something of interest to you, mistress," he announced. "We found two dragons a mile from here."

Only a mile—she could have seen them herself, if it were not for the flying ash. She left the fish where it lay. It was only a fish. "Alive? Are the poor things trapped?"

"No, mistress. They've just perched on an arch. They do not seem much harmed, but we cannot go too near. The Dragoon with them attacks if we do."

Unlike Miata, Charle could control her body's reactions; her heart skipped no beats, nor did she stir. "Which Dragoon?" she inquired, folding her hands at her waist. She considered what she knew of their strengths, their fears, their ability to survive battle alone; which would have protected which other, who would have gone down in a blaze of misbegotten glory. She did not hope, but, of course, she had her preference.

"It's the dark one—Rose."

Charle smiled.

*******

Of course, it was not easy to convince Rose to come with them. Self-assigned guardian of the memorial arch and the dragons roosting mournfully there, the Dragoon—solitary, blood-spattered—seemed like a creature possessed. The first two winglies to come within twenty yards were cut to ribbons before Charle's eyes.

"Stop this at once!" she ordered, flying down a little faster than dignity excused. At the familiar voice, Rose's face turned towards her, like a white lily floating in the black pool of armor, wings, and tangled hair. Her eyes failed to focus.

"Rosie, honey, you must stop," Charle repeated, more gently, gliding toward her. Miata followed gamely. "The battle is over."

The rapier in Rose's white-knuckled hand lowered, trailing streamers of dark matter and wingly blood. The Dragoon's voice came out in a whisper. "Have we won?"

Now within striking range, if Rose should choose violence, Charle never faltered. Her guards murmured. "The humans have won," she corrected, tucking one of Rose's snarled black locks behind her ear. "_You_ have lost."

Rose seemed to shrink. On the arch above her, one of the dragons threw its bright head back, keening high, sweet, and eerie—the tacky scarlet one Charle had never liked. Its larger, sleeker comrade, dark as night, hunched like a vulture.

Charle tried to take the rapier from Rose's hand, but although the young woman did not resist, neither did her grip loosen. "Come away now, dear. There's nothing left, and Kadessa is still crumbling. It's time to come home."

Rose fixed red-rimmed eyes on the far horizon, although there was nothing there that Charle could see. "Gloriano is burned—every inch of it," she rasped. "It's all gone. Where do I go?"

"With me, of course." Charle tucked her arm through the Dragoon's, accepting that her silken sleeve would never recover from the stain. "As you belong."

Meekly, like a child, like the living doll she had once been, Rose allowed the wingly sorcerer-heiress to lead her away from the arch and whatever griefs and horrors lay beyond. Charle held her closely, and after a few minutes—as she had suspected would happen—the dragoon spirit left Rose. Her chitinous obsidian armor melted away into mere chipped leather and steel. When her wings disintegrated into falling ash, Miata immediately took her other arm to bear her through the air.

"Mistress, what is to be done with the dragons?" Miata whispered.

Charle watched Rose's face for reaction, but the Dragoon had passed beyond comprehension again. "Michael will follow his little mother," she answered, just as softly, "and as long as he behaves like a good boy, we will shelter him as well."

"And Zieg's creature?"

"Dart will be ever so miserable without him,"she replied after a moment of deep thought, "and ever so wild! When we are far away, have the guards dispose of him, would you? And let it be quick, there's a darling."

Rose did not blink. Charle bent her head over the Dragoon's ear and whispered, still hoping, "Melly?" That gained no more response than before. Sighing, Charle caressed the human's scratched and bloody cheek, where tears had burned red fissures into her skin.

*******

Far from the stench of slaughter and the smoke of Kadessa's destruction, the windows of Ulara gleamed with the cold light of the swelling moon. Charle watched it rise as long as she could stand, thinking of things past and things lost. Finally, she drew back, dimming the glass, and turned to examine her guest.

With the stilling of the soul of the dragon inside of her, Rose had become docile, submitting mutely to the ministration of Charle's attendants. They peeled off her ruined armor and bathed her lean white body. Every brush of their hands served to heal her wounds. A trio of them devoted themselves solely to combing out her long hair to ebony silk. Charle supervised critically, rejecting the gold and white robe they brought out for her.

"Definitely not. Her coloring is all wrong."

"But mistress, you always liked her in this robe before…"

"Did I? How silly I must have been!" Charle smiled. "Well, run along and find something darker now. Black will look so striking against her skin, don't you think?"

"Yes, mistress."

They dressed Rose as Charle directed, meeting no more resistance than if they were putting clothes on a mannequin. If Rose thought anything of it, if she thought at all, she gave no indication.

This pleased Charle. She had not selected the prettiest, most delicate, most graceful child from the tribe of Ruj and spent nearly two decades cultivating her in art, music, literature, and swordplay, only to see her wasted on Diaz's little war. She liked Zieg Feld and the rest well enough, but they were so _rough_. The day they stole her precious pet away, to make a warrior out of her, Charle had been in such a foul mood that she forgot to feed the roses. It soothed her to see Rose once again where she belonged, as she belonged.

"That will do for now," she said, as an attendant finished painting lacquer onto Rose's nails. "I think Rosie has had quite a busy day! Fetch us some tea and a little to eat with it. That is all."

"And the tea, mistress?"

"No, no, silly child, just the normal kind."

The scout from earlier appeared in the doorway as her attendants filed out—unannounced and unescorted. Charle hid her displeasure, but made a note to have him assigned somewhere inglorious. "Lady Charle, there are reports of human army activity on the ground. Do you wish Ulara to ascend to higher altitude?"

"No, no, they'll only shoot us down. Now that Diaz is gone, they may turn reckless, and those nasty little cannons at Vellweb work with or without Dragoons. " Charle tapped her finger against her lips. "Have the city moved over Gloriano for now."

"Mistress, Gloriano is still burning below."

"Then I suppose we must close the windows and hide in the smoke. Oh! And be sure to put a ward around my roses, will you? This war has been so bad for their growth." She dismissed him with a wave and settled herself into a chair beside her one human flower, unique in all the world, already thinking of the pruning and cultivating that would be required to restore the damage done.

Miata brought the tea and took herself off to a seat by the window, unobtrusively present should her mistress require her, and alternated reading a book of poetry and watching the impregnated moon grow and shimmer. Charle made herself cozy, removing her slippers to tuck her feet under her, and waited.

Two hours passed. Outside the windows, the bizarre daytime luminescence dimmed; they drew near the giant crematorium that was Gloriano.

"Damia's dead." Rose spoke so quietly that Charle barely caught the words. The Dragoon cupped her fingers around her teacup and stared at the rising steam as if it were a snake, coiling to strike her.

"I know, honey. Hasn't it been two months now?" Charle leaned over and touched the rim of the teacup with one finger, injecting a little more heat into it, as she had been doing patiently for the past two hours. "Your naughty friends wrecked Aglis for her, I remember."

"Kanzas is dead," Rose went on, as if Charle had not spoken. "A wingly broke his spine, so he did not think he would ever leave the battle. He only had his Dragoon wings and his hands. He called a storm out of his own body to destroy the Virage guarding the core of Kadessa's flying devices. Then the city began to fall."

Several hundred miles away, Charle and her people had heard the thunderclap. She shook her head fondly. "Silly boy! He never did things by halves…" Rose went on in that same maddening monotone. "Belzac and Shirley are dead. He wouldn't let her die, and she wouldn't let him die alone. His dragon is also dead."

Another half hour of silence passed. The eerie moonglow daubed the room with fingers of accusation. "Rosie, I hate to be the one to tell you," Charle said finally, taking the Dragoon's cold hand, "but Suvie's passed on as well."

Rose's fingers twitched. "Syuveil? The poison?"

"Yes," Charle said.

"Then that is everyone. Every last one of us."

"Oh my," she sighed, although of course she knew the moment that she saw the Red-Eyed Dragon howling alone atop that cracked archway. "What happened to lovely Zieggy?"

"Zieg."

And Rose dropped the cup, the fine porcelain shattering in a splash of scalding tea between her feet. Her hands covered her mouth. No, they were in her mouth, and she bit on the knuckles until the skin broke with beads of scarlet. Liquid welled in her eyes, but instead of clear salt water, it ran down her cheeks black as ink.

"Stop, sweetie, you'll hurt yourself," Charle chided. She pried Rose's hands away from her teeth. The Dragoon sat frozen, crying tears of darkness, and the wingly sorcerer-heiress patted her wounded fingers soothingly.

"Am I dead, too?" she croaked, almost longingly.

"Oh, Rosie, no."

"Every last damned one of us," Rose repeated, and Charle frowned and pinched her wrist for the profanity.

* * *

_[To be continued]_


	2. Chapter 2

_[A/N: If anyone still reads this-sorry it's so terribly late! I was working on finishing "North of the Wind." It seems that "The Victors" will be three parts instead of two, so I'm going to upload this as long as it's done. Thanks for reading.]_

* * *

.

THE VICTORS [II]

.

It was not strictly true what she said about Syuveil. The gangly scholar was dead, yes, and surely Frahma's poison would have been the cause given a little more time. Charle accused herself of nothing.

A dragon's metabolism proved stronger than the fever that Frahma's new weapons dealt, and great tusked Feyrbrand would live—physically, at least. That counted among the few things the humans could cheer after the costly battle at Mayfil. It took longer for the infection's other effects to show. When they did, there was no reversing them. Feyrbrand, the graceful web-spinner, the creature with a voice like wind chimes, became clumsy, erratic, a flesh-eater. The sickness it breathed was contagious. Over a hundred humans died before they drove their onetime champion away from the walls of Vellweb.

Syuveil, whose soul was enmeshed with the poisoned dragon's own, was doomed. Even Shirley could not save him.

Unable to fight beside his comrades, the ailing Jade Dragoon had flown to Ulara to bring Charle the tidings she already knew: that Emperor Diaz lay dead with all Gloriano for a pyre. His Dragoons raced to tear Kadessa from the sky, to make it into a matching cairn for Diaz's foe. Syuveil collapsed in Charle's garden with that message still on his cracked lips, and ruined her robe with bloody retching.

It was not in Wingly nature to be less than gracious hosts. Overlooking the stain, Charle had had Syuveil brought inside, his bedraggled clothing replaced with clean silk. A little exertion of magic cooled his fever and numbed his pain. She could and would not cure what her brother had cursed, but that much she could do for one of her favorites. She eased his panic with assurances that yes, of course she had sent her pearl-armored guards to aid the Dragoons, and certainly, he was safe now. She settled him on a divan, serving him tea herself for the novelty of it, and let time lull past.

He rested, soothed by Ulara's musicians, the finest child prodigies from the best Wingly families (and there had been humans among their number, once, before Diaz made such a silly fuss about it. Syuveil himself had been one, before he proved to be even more gifted with matters of science and philosophy, espionage and assassination than he was with lute or oboe; and she had never kept a more charming boy.) Meanwhile, several hundred miles away, his brothers and sisters bled and died on the teeth and claws of her brother's magic.

She filled his ears with soft talk, his mind with the sweet vapors of spring dew and heady spices. He lay half-dreaming, Charle stroking his fine hair and waiting for his lovely pale eyes to close. He looked so meek and beautiful that she forgot his cleverness.

Just when his breathing began to slow and waver, he stirred. He looked up at her, his gaze sharp and hard even without the spectacles.

"What have you done to me?"

She refilled his cup for the third time, and put it into his hand, remembering when it had not borne a single callus. "I have ensured that you feel no pain," she answered, smiling.

Horror clawed at the backs of his eyes. With all of his siphoned strength, he flung the cup into the nearest brazier. It flared up in golden sparks. Syuveil struggled off the couch. A gust of wind rattled the windows, knocking over several small pieces of fine art, when he tried to draw on his Dragoon spirit. Misty wings coalesced at his back as he stumbled away, but failed to solidify. The compound that Charle had added to his tea dissolved his muscles from the inside out, painlessly, just as she had promised.

Syuveil crumpled after a few tottering steps. To her surprise and admiration, he still dragged himself several feet nearer the door before even that strength left him. Unaffected by the flames, Charle fished the pieces of the teacup out of the brazier, while the Dragoon beat his head on the floor in wild, helpless rage.

"You soulless bitch," he sobbed. She knelt beside him, keeping her skirts out of the way in case he vomited again. "You fucking traitor. We were allies."

"Yes, but Suvie," she said, frowning gently, "I'm still a Wingly."

.

Humans would not understand; Dragoons could not understand, poor pretty half-mad creatures that they were. Diaz and his little toy army had made all Winglies out to be evil, making his cause more appealing to those Humans still dallying about their allegiance. Charle and her court had been pardoned as rebels in their own right, defying Melbu Frahma and alienating the rest of their own kind.

"But that isn't it at all, Dee," she had tried to explain, the last time she saw him, just before his murder and the incineration of Gloriano.

The little bantam emperor tried so hard to understand. "Didn't he kill your mother and father?"

"It was quite a long time ago, dear—your great-grandparents wouldn't remember."

The fact that she was a Wingly held no significance for him, beyond the most mundane matters of biology and sorcery. Remembering, Charle bit her lip in vexation.

Not even open for a century, Human eyes could not see what her eyes had. Melbu Frahma had not been the one to enslave them, but he had reigned over them, the Lord of Lords of the Winglies. He had not initiated wars or genocides, but when Emperor Diaz declared rebellion, Frahma responded with appropriate wrath. When Diaz invented a way to best Frahma's magic (the Dragoons), Frahma devised means by which to kill them (the Virage).

Humans spoke of the fall of Aeira, the Town of Autumn Rains, with rage. The only Wingly city to have been destroyed by Wingly hands, in Human memory it marked the capture and torture of Commander Zieg Feld, and the murder of all the Human soldiers who had been stationed there.

But Charle, who had owned the city and therefore had the most right to be angry, had different recollections. While Frahma's troops disposed of the Humans—most simply tossed from the city walls, to fall for miles through unforgiving skies—and his Virage pummeled the broken-winged Dragoon into unconsciousness, if not submission—Frahma had come to Charle in her garden, where she watched the cinders of battle burn holes through the broad red and gold leaves. Apologizing for the necessary destruction of the city, he offered her his arm, and escorted her courteously out of the bloodbath. They had spent a lovely fortnight in Kadessa, watching plays and concerts in the great amphitheatre and talking about the old days over goblets of the finest wine, before the Dragoons stole Zieg back and the war resumed.

She understood humans quite well, but that understanding would never go both ways. Now that the humans had won their precious freedom, they would inherit a world beyond their ability to comprehend.

.

Charle had sighed for the pity of it. Syuveil had not realized there would be consequences for the insult he dealt her, years ago: not merely abandoning his loving mistress, his patron and owner, but returning to steal away her most prized pet and ruin her with war.

As an ally, Charle was considerate, and had punished him tenderly. Still, she was a Wingly sorceress and of a noble line. She neither forgot nor forgave.

"Be at peace," she told the young man dying at her feet, blood in his mouth and nose and rimming his eyes. "I will think of you fondly long after your kind has forgotten this war."

"How can I leave the world in the hands of the likes of you?"

"The world has always been in my hands, my darling," she had said, laying her hand on his pretty head.

.

She would have to visit the craftsmen to replace those teacups; soon the humans would deprive her of all access to such luxuries, and only Ulara would remain. Thinking of it, she rose to ring for Miata, and found the tip of a rapier at her throat.

* * *

_[To be continued]_


End file.
